I gave my last $10 to a homeless man in 1998.
Decades later, a lawyer walked into my office carrying a box, and the moment I opened it, I broke down in tears.
PART 1
My name is Elena Reyes.
I was seventeen when I had my twins.
Seventeen, broke, exhausted, and still an honor student, because I believed that if I worked hard enough, the world would eventually hand me a door.
My parents did not share that belief.
I still remember the afternoon I told them.
My mother was standing in our front hall in a cream wool coat, a designer handbag on her arm that cost more than three months of our rent, and she looked at my stomach like I’d tracked mud across her life.
“You’ve ruined everything,” she said. “Do you understand that? Everything.”
My father didn’t even stand up.
They gave me until the end of the week.
